The Honour Students with their torches in front of the Phi Theta Kappa backdrop after they were inducted.

It was the first batch of students inducted into the honour society for the Fall 2011 Semester, with another planned for Spring 2012. Two other students were provisionally inducted, with the possibility of full membership later in the semester.

As part of the ceremony, each student was required to sign into a register and light a torch before receiving a golden pin. In Phi Theta Kappa, the torch is “symbolic of knowledge, which is the servant of wisdom, which dwells with prudence and leads in the way of righteousness in the midst of the paths of judgment.”

The students were also required to accept a white rose signifying “purity and beauty of life, with its white buds signifying intellectual associations” as a symbol of their newly formed intellectual friendship, another Phi Theta Kappa tradition.

Vice President of HLSCC Dr. Anne Monroe congratulated the students and said the institution is proud of them for the high academic standard they have been setting. Associate Vice President Dr. Christine Hodge thanked the students for their commitment and urged them to be a “light to the world” in keeping with their symbolic lighting of the torch of knowledge.

Head of the Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Communications Sauda Smith, who also serves as one of six advisors for the College’s Chapter, encouraged the students to continue working hard and lauded them as “ambitious and aspiring” future leaders.

“The Phi Theta Kappa Honour Society is where opportunities are as good as gold and definitely the place where you belong,” she said. “It is indeed ok to be smart.”

The Beta Omicron Sigma Chapter at HLSCC was chartered on 28 May 2006. To be inducted, students are required to have at least 12 hours of degree course work and a minimum Grade Point Average of 3.5. To remain a member, students must maintain a minimum GPA of 3.4.

Phi Theta Kappa is the international honour society of two-year colleges. It is the largest honour society in American higher education with more than two million members and 1200 chapters located in all 50 of the United States, U.S. territories, Canada, Germany and elsewhere, including at HLSCC. Sixty-five students were inducted into the College’s Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa during the last academic year.

The Honour Students are Melonee Callwood, Chrysanta Creque-Connors, Sheneé Davies, Kelvin Dawson, Lesia Donovan, Thandie Griffith, Judy Jardine-Hodge, Khadisha Isaac, Sheoma Richards, Monea Richardson, Rhana Richardson, Laura Smith and Jermin Thomas. Provisional membership – Kadeau Collins and Peterson Lawrence.